Go hear every missionary speaker that you can. Often God uses their words to speak and to clarify His desires.

Talk to your Spiritual Mentor. This may be your pastor or small group leader. Tell him about your desire and ask him for his help in getting you ready. This is crucial. Remember that your calling is not a promotion. Stay humble, you haven’t done anything yet.

Become active in ministry to the unchurched. Learning how to minister in love and consistency to the “lost” in our own culture before flying to the other side of the planet is important. If you can’t do it here with people who speak your language, what makes you think you can do it in a radically different cultural group?

Start a small group. Get some experience leading a group. Study a book of the Bible, or lead a book study and discussion group.

Befriend internationals. Invite refugees, international students, immigrants to your home for meals. Enjoy them and their cultures.

Get out of debt. Debt will thwart your ability to go as a missionary. You may need to make sacrifices, limit spending, and get extra work to pay it off as quickly as possible.

Go on a short-term mission trip to the unreached. A mission trip to the unreached will help you analyze the call of God on your life and give you a taste of real life. Many times it is good to take one of more short-term mission trips to the area where you plan on serving.

Get training! Beautiful Feet Boot Camp has been described as the best training available for missionaries going to the unreached. Take advantage of this excellent preparation.

Go! Beautiful Feet and our partner ministries stand ready to help you in your deployment and on-field care.

10 Ways to avoid becoming a missionaryA tongue-in-cheek look at some sure-fire ways to avoid becoming a missionary.

Ignore Jesus' request in John 4:35 that we take a long hard look at the fields. Seeing the needs of people can be depressing and very unsettling. It could lead to genuine missionary concern.

(John 4:35 "Do you not say, `Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.")

Focus your energies on socially legitimate targets. Go after a bigger salary. Focus on getting a job promotion, a bigger home, a more luxurious car, or future financial security. Along the way, run up some big credit card debts.

Get married to somebody who thinks the "Great Commission" is what your employer gives you after you make a big sale. After marriage, embrace the socially accepted norms of settling down, establishing a respectable career trajectory and raising a picture-perfect family.

Stay away from missionaries. Their testimonies can be disturbing. The situations they describe will distract you from embracing whole-heartedly the materialistic lifestyle of your home country.

If you happen to think about missions, restrict your attention to countries where it's impossible to openly do missionary work. Think only about North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China and other closed countries. Forget the vast areas of our globe open to missionaries. Never, never listen to talk about creative access countries.

Think how bad a missionary you would be based on your own past failures. It is unreasonable to expect you will ever be any better. Don't even think about Moses, David, Jonah, Peter or Mark, all of whom overcame failures.

Always imagine missionaries as talented, super-spiritual people who stand on lofty pedestals. Maintaining this image of missionaries will heighten your own sense of inadequacy. Convincing yourself that God does not use ordinary people as missionaries will smother any guilt you may feel about refusing to even listen for a call from God.

Agree with the people who tell you that you are indispensable where you are. Listen when they tell you that your local church or home country can't do without you.

Worry incessantly about money.

If you still feel you must go, go out right away without any preparation or training. You'll soon be home again and no one can ever blame you for not trying!

Inspired by Stewart Dinnen's list in How are you doing? (Bromley: STL Books, 1984)

About us

There are still more than two billion people who haven't ever heard that Jesus came to earth to rescue them. Beautiful Feet is a specialized missions agency that is called to partner with local churches to train and send long-term, church planting missionary teams to these people who are still unreached by the gospel. more →